Post by simplynaturalfarm on Dec 9, 2023 14:44:33 GMT -5
Sadly, I m one who can not handle grain fed milk! I am not most people!
I am sorry you have had such a hard time grass feeding your animals and had to cull them.
I on the other hand have only grass fed my animals since 1997 when I first moved to a farm.
I have never had to cull an animal because I grass fed it.
I don’t feed my animals moldy crap hay, we usually buy what they call horse hay.
Sorry I have offended you all with the silly notion that a person can grass feed quality food and not have to kill the animals because of it!
It sounded to me as though you have not raised it owned a milk cow yet - many of us have owned many. Milk sheep and goats are even far different. I am not the only the only grassfed or low grain producer on here. I haven't culled many beef animals for grassfed as most are pretty hardy, but even beef animals have varying Levels of hardiness. And many many have to cull dairy cows for condition issues. Tit happens even among those feeding grain.
You do not have to apologize for anything. We are simply people who don't want anybody to fail . I have 40+ cows right now and 99% of them are 100% grassfed. I've had cows , sheep, etc for 25/26 years. I actually know how to do it 😜.
We are simply cautioning you to be careful. That to succeed you may need to get local , have high quality forage, improved land and good soil. Or working on it all. That's all.
We actually don't know anything about you, except that you've bought certain milk you can drink. And that you don't know if you can drink other milk. And that you can drink some red label but can eat red label cottage cheese. And that you can get away with some fed corn, but not your neighbors. You don't have to justify your existence to us - a simple " I've done it successfully and the animals are doing great but thank you for caring and not wanting animals to suffer" would have sufficed. ☺️
Most people can drink grass based milk. I have all a2a2 cows and a great many allergies and kids with allergies. I was down to eating 5 foods. My kids have allergies to life. A2a2 milk I couldn't even handle for years. I still have gut issues , fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis and tested positive for Celiac. I can only handle so much, but grassfed doesn't even make it better. Avoiding all veggies and starch makes me better and then I can handle dairy. If I consume veggies, starches etc I'm in pain. I hate it when we have to prove we are just as sick as each other to show we have a valid argument but there, I'm sick too.
We get many on here who get upset when their cows don't do what they wanted. They spent a lot of money for grassfed and are not happy. We are just trying to help avoid some situations. Being open minded to say " if the cow can't handle it I'll feed what she needs and resell" is important. That's what my concern is - I have bought many dairy cows from grass based and low input places who couldn't do it here. A cow can't help what she can and can't do and they can't feed themselves or talk us into treating them well. I guess I'm just advocating for those in our care who can't feed themselves -" a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."
I could show you my tubby grassfed girls - it absolutely can be done. And I haven't had to cull heifers I've produced, but every cow I've bought I've ended up culling for something and that's ok. Some produced way more than they could support on grass, some required more grain than i want to feed, some too big, some bad attitudes etc. It's life with animals. If you aren't ever culling you aren't improving.